Prometheus

These are pondering questions that producer/director Ridley Scott raises without providing answers.

"Prometheus" starts out like a soul-searching "2001: A Space Odyssey," complete with a weird character rising from the earth and decomposing in the sea and switching to cave explorers discovering ancient drawings of men pointing to objects in the sky.

Then we get a bit of “Star Trek” as a mixed bunch of space explorers head for a distant planet to answer the call from what they believe is the answer to our creation.

From there, the film switches to shades of Scott's "Alien," with earthlings battling aliens, androids, snakelike creatures and themselves.

Noomi Rapace is the heroine who leads the motley crew under the control of a cold corporate employee (Charlize Theron), discovering stone vessels that appear to hatch eggs, octopus-like creatures and huge spaceships. And there is this strange giant cave that houses the supposed secret that cries out danger, do not enter. But of course they do, and that is when the violence reaches its peak, as the crew is slowly eliminated.

And who is this David, an android that knows more than he shares with the humans until push comes to shove and the humans are down to their last survivor.

Scott places the action in the year 2093, before the "Alien" movies, and leaves us with the strong possibility of a sequel to the prequel. I found all of this to be very uneven and pretentious, starting with the premise that another being from another universe made us, but then tries to destroy us, and then turning into yet another humans versus icky aliens. Sci-fi fans may see things differently, but they will have to wait a few years until Scott takes us to the next chapter.